


Ready?

by Catchclaw



Series: Ready and Willing [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Spock, it's easier to be himself in the dark, where you can summon the ones that haunt you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ready?

It washes over you in a wave, this sense of unease, and sends a low shiver up your spine. You turn, half expecting to see someone there--a haint, your mother would call it--but the lab is empty, silent. You turn back to your work but that sense of discomfort lingers, a steady, subdermal hum that snaps your concentration. You know he is not here; he's safely tucked away on the bridge, where he can monitor the whole ship, the whole sector: but not you. For an instant, you feel his eyes on you--on the bridge, in the 'lift, in passing--and your face burns in what you tell yourself is shame. You know you are alone, but you can't shake the feeling that someone is watching you. Someone who can see that you are not in control.

Desperately, you wrap your fingers around the edge of the table and focus your attention on that sensation--the cool, sharp edge that bites into your flesh. You clench your hand as tightly as you dare, not wanting to leave an outline of your fist pressed into the table: further evidence that you--the not-in-control you--were here. You take a long, deep breath, and then another, and another, and slowly, you come back to yourself.

You're usually so much better at this, you think, better at functioning without flinching every time you think of him, or you hear his voice, or feel him waiting patiently at your shoulder. Somehow, it's easier when he's close by; you have to devote so much energy to staying within yourself, to not speaking to him, or looking at him, or touching him, that there is little danger of a mistake. When you are away from him, it's much more difficult, for you find your well-ordered mind slipping down into disorder, the kind that makes your face flush and your hands tremble and your eyes feel like flame.

[Then why did you come here, alone? You knew what was going to happen, didn't you? You are yourself here, for better or worse.]

You turn back to the computer, grinding your teeth in the dark. This is not you. You are not this creature who wants, who desires, that which he cannot have. You are Spock. I am Spock, you tell the computer, your fingers flying over the interface. The computer recognizes you and responds to your touch, folding out number after number, solution after solution, irreducible fact after fact. There is order in this, and, for a few moments, you keep the haint at bay.

You lose yourself quite willingly in the work--a skill hard-fought and long-practiced. Better to be lost in a long series of theorems and possibilities than in thoughts that lead only to madness, the kind of madness you crave in the dark but you fear in the light of day. His eyes swim in your mind and the numbers disappear in a rush of heat that rings in your ears. You reach wildly for the table again, curl your fingers again, and the ghost is at your back once more.

You feel love for him--at least what you imagine love to be like--and you are ashamed. But you cannot deny it. He is like oxygen, or gravity, or the speed of light in a vacuum: he is one of the few constants in your universe. To deny him would be foolish, illogical, impossible.

You turn away from the screen, suddenly grateful for the solitary confinement of the lab. Your face twists--you cannot stop it--and your eyes are fire, for a moment.  There is more to it than love, the haint whispers in your ear, and you feel that, for a moment, deep inside your body. In the darkened lab, you see the curve of his shoulder, bask in the flash of his smile, feel his hip resting against yours as you both duck into an alien doorway. He's looking out, phaser in hand, ready to spring, but you are aware only of him, of the energy that coils in his body, of the heat that presses through his flesh. He looks back at you, in your memory, his eyes trusting, purposeful--wholly focused on the task at hand. "Ready?" he asks.

He knows nothing of how you feel. You accept this--another one of those constants in your world. He will know nothing. You will say nothing. You belong to him, and what he needs from you--what he wants from you--is loyalty. Steadiness. "You're my rock of logic," he told you once, eyes half-lidded in amusement. Here, away from him, locked in with your own thoughts, your own heavy heartbeat, the hot rush of your blood, you know: the rock is crumbling. Alone, you watch pieces of yourself fall away and tumble into space. Alone, you hope he is there to catch you.

  



End file.
